Have you ever thought about all the ways that have stopped you from reaching your lifelong goal? In order for a person to become successful they must overcome their obstacles, they must persevere through their adversities and they must ignore all the distractions that may appear. There are many texts that include examples of how a person perseveres through their difficult times. The Alchemist is a novel written by Paulo Coelho and is about a shepherd boy, Santiago, who wants to achieve his dream in life and his ways of achieving it. Santiago has to make a handful of very intellectual decisions and has to work through many adversities in order for him to pursue his dream. Santiago worked through his obstacles and did not let excuses and disappointment stop him from reaching his goal. In order to persevere through the difficult times one may face, they cannot be afraid to fail, they have to overcome their excuses, and they need support from others. For a person to overcome the difficult times they may face in their life, they need to utilizes a few different strategies. A person cannot be afraid to fail. They will overcome this obstacle once they realize that everyone makes mistakes, and it is often in this failure that we learn new lessons they give them different opportunities. A person has to stop making excuses. They will get past this obstacle when they realize they won’t reach their goal with excuses, and that excuses hold them back from their full potential. Lastly, a person cannot succeed without support. They will work through this obstacle by realizing that teamwork accomplishes more than individual work. When somebody wants to achieve a goal or make a dream a reality they cannot be afraid of failure. Being willing to fail and knowing that nothing will be perfect all of the time is how a successful person overcomes obstacles and ignores the distractions that prohibit oneself from achieving their goal. A former Navy SEAL once said, "When entering this phase of my life, I knew that statistically, the odds were not in my favor. I also knew that if I didn’t try, I would never forgive myself. I decided that I would rather try and fail than be the guy who says, 'I was thinking about trying that.' You simply can’t look at life through a lens of fear. If you take a calculated risk and fail, at the very least you have a valuable learning experience. Get back up. Dust off. And never, ever, be out of the fight" (Gleeson). Becoming a Navy SEAL is something anyone can do, believe it or not. Having the right mindset and thinking positively are ways to overcome the obstacles that are stopping you from whatever you want to do with your life. This man had the top-notch dream to become a Navy SEAL knowing that it wouldn’t be easy but certain